


Kids In The Hall

by Daniela_is_not_amused



Series: Life is whatever we conceive it to be [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Big Bro Harley Kenner, Bruce Banner isn't a good bro, Civil War Team Iron Man, Dubious Science, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Geek Talk, Hand waving science, Harley is a little shit, He needs to learn, I Don't Even Know, I'm not a scientist ok, JARVIS is mentioned a lot, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Feels, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Lives, Little Bro Peter Parker, Minor Siblings Rivalry, Peter is a Little Shit, Post-Canon, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pranks and Practical Jokes, Protective Siblings, Robot Dogs, Siblings Feels, Star Trek References, Star Wars References, Team Feels, Techno Babble, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Worried Jarvis (Iron Man movies), a lot of things happen in the last chapter, but he will be, dad tony stark, even the digital ones, he loves all his kids very much, tony stark is a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-01-28 23:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daniela_is_not_amused/pseuds/Daniela_is_not_amused
Summary: "Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you have ever been to stand back up taller then you ever were."orLife has never been kind to Tony, so he became used to fighting back alone. This time he has an entire family (and some old and new friends) to help him get back up.





	1. Of jealousy and deep thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> So, hm... I'm back?
> 
> Ok, first of all: I'm sorry I took so long. This chapter should have been posted on Halloween but stuff happened and school and math test and mental health (or lack of) hit me in the chest like Cap's shield (too soon?). So yeah...
> 
> Second: I have 4 chapters planned for this part and I hope I can go them in the next two to three weeks? I'll try. I promise. I'm kinda rushing the entire plot because I want to bring back the ex-Avengers but I first needed to bring back all these characters I love. 
> 
> Final point: I'm sorry for the ungodly amount of dialogue. This is just a small warm up to Harley as I find out how to write him properly. I promise the next chapter will be much better.
> 
> Once again, this was not beta read and english is not my first language. Please be kind to me and feel free to chat with me in the comments or on Tumblr (sassy-shadowy-student)! I love every single comment you leave for me!
> 
> Enjoy!

He was being stupid.

 

Peter _knew_ he was being childish and stupid but, still, he couldn’t stop himself from being upset.

 

“It’s not like you’re the only kid that likes Tony”, his conscience shot back at him. “He probably helps a load of kids that need money or motivation to get through high school. Besides, you’re here. You live with him, he let’s you call him “dad” and Miss Potts likes you. He’s not gonna send you away.”

 

_Or is he?_

 

“Shut up, Peter.”

 

Peter had never been a self-assured person.

He tended to focus on his flaws and setbacks rather than his gifts and privileges. To his despair he caught himself remembering all the minor mistakes or awkward moments from the past and letting himself be overwhelmed by them.

He had tried to talk about it with Aunt May, after all, they were close, but he quickly found out he simply couldn’t. His tongue would get stuck to the top of his mouth, jaws clenched together so firmly he thought he was going to break a tooth and a panic wave sitting in his stomach, wait to break free. So Peter decided to bottle up.

When he had met Tony, he immediately picked up on Peter’s lack of confidence and did all he could to boost Peter’s self-esteem, even going as far as subtly alerting Miss Potts and Rhodey to the importance of praising him. Peter was constantly showered in praises (even if all he did was finish his homework or clean up after himself), cuddles (Tony’s favourite was the basic “hand-on-shoulder” dad move while Miss Potts would kiss the top of his head and Rhodey just smiled kindly at him) and gifts (a new laptop when school started, a new phone when Tony found out he had dropped his while patrolling, free access to the labs, a bigger allowance then what he would ever need and random candy being thrown at him during the day).

So, yeah. he got a little bit used to being the youngest in the team, the family’s kid and he was basically living the dream, after so many years of just being him and his aunt against the world. Now he had a huge safety net and he wasn’t ready to lose it just yet.

So, yeah he was panicking because Tony had asked him for five minutes after breakfast to have a talk with him and basically told him about a kid he had met during the Mandarin chaos named Harley. Apparently, Harley was only two years older than him (a year and a few months, to be exact) but he was already in MIT and, since, summer break was just starting and Harley didn’t planned anything to do, Tony had invited him to spend a few weeks in the compound. So he could hang out. With Peter. Harley said yes.

So, now, Peter was in his room, pretending to read a book from the summer mandatory reading list and freaking out because _what if this is it? What if Harley is better than me and Tony sends me back to Queens? What if he never wants to be around me again?_

So he did what he always does when he’s panicking. He called Ned.

“Dude, is eight in the morning. Could you not call me on the first day of summer break at eight in the freaking morning?”, Ned’s voice rang loud, a bit less pitched than usual.

“It’s nine, forty three Ned.”

“It’s the same thing, Parker. Now, what do you want from me? Wait, are you spiderman-ing?”

“That’s… That’s not a word Ned. And.. No, I’m not out patrolling. I’m at home but I need your help.”

“Oh. What is it? If it’s homework, I can’t help you dude. I still haven’t touched my backpack since I came home from school.”, Ned’s voice was higher now. The words less rolled up than before as he slowly woke up and started to think faster.

Peter sighed. He could either tell the truth and probably have to endure Ned’s jokes forever or he could lie about it and hang up.

“Peter? Are you there?”

“Oh? Yeah… I… Tony told me he invited Harley to spend the summer here.”

“Who the heck is Harley?”, Ned was definitely up now. Peter could hear him getting out of bed and walking around the room.

“A kid he met during the Mandarin attacks. He helped him when the power was off. He’s like… two years older than us.”

“And they stayed in touch? That’s a long time to be friend with a kid. He’s like… his fake kid or?” _Wow, Ned! You sure know how to say the right things at all times!_ “Wait, is that why you called? ‘Cause Mr. Stark is bringing a new kid home? Are you… Are you jealous, Peter?”

“No!”, Peter said immediately, causing Ned to burst into laughter. From his side of the line, he could hear Ned’s shaking breaths and something fall to the ground.

“You are! Peter, this is awesome! Are you gonna fight this kid for the “favourite son” award?”, Ned asked in between giggles. _Why did I even called you?_

“I’m not gonna fight anyone Ned. I’m sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep. I have to go.”

Peter was almost hanging up the call when he heard Ned’s “ _NO!_ ” from the other side of the line and a few coughs. “Are you done laughing at me, then? ‘Cause I really need your help dude!”

“I am, I promise. I’m sorry dude. I wanna help but… You have to admit it’s funny, right?”

“Yeah, really funny, Ned. If I end up being kicked out back to Queens that will be really funny!”

“You don’t actually think he’s going to kick you out, right? I mean, that’s crazy Peter!”

“I don’t know Ned!”, he shot back. He stepped back at the sound of his own voice, surprised at how angry and stressed it sounded.

“Dude, you’re insane. Mr. Stark has been throwing gifts at you left and right and you think he’s going to send you away with a kick in the ass because of this random kid?”

“I… don’t know. You said it so. It’s a long time to be friends with a random kid. Maybe he likes him more…”

“More than you? Peter, you’re living in his house! You’re working in his company! You’re basically his side-kick! Do you see this kid anywhere? ‘Cause I don’t. If he liked him that much, he would be here, not you!”

“He’s already in MIT, so maybe…”

“Maybe Tony likes him because he’s smart but so are you! Just show him you’re smart, play cool and don’t stress. If you start running around like crazy, than this Harley kid is gonna use it against you. So, be you, play nice and show Stark you’re still cool enough to stay.”

“I was never cool enough to stay, Ned.”

“Stark thinks you are. So chill.”

“That’s it? Chill? Be nice?”

“It’ll work. Trust me, dude. It will work.”

“Fine… He’ll be here before lunch so I should help Aunt May with the food. We’ll talk later.”

“Tell me how it went after!” Ned demanded before hanging up. Peter sighed and got ready to walk to the kitchen. “ _Chill, be nice, act natural… Yeah, right._ ”

\--------------

Harley Keener, was, in fact, still a kid, despite being older than him. He showed up in old, worn-out clothes, shabby hair and a two huge backpacks hanging from his shoulders. Happy complained about the fact that his sneakers were full of mud while Miss Potts hugged the teenager. For, whatever reason, Peter felt a little less intimidated now that he could see him.

\- Tony will be here in a second. How was the flight? Are you ok?

-It’s cool, Miss Potts. I’m fine and the flight was boring but I managed to not die. - He dropped the bags in the middle of the hall and followed her into the kitchen where Peter was snacking on some fresh baked cookies. Harley’s eyes dropped on him and Peter felt the hairs in the back of his neck standing up. - Hi, I’m Harley. You’re Peter, right?

-Yeah. Welcome. - Peter said while getting up to his feet, hands stuffed in his pockets, trying his best to ignore the extended hand in front of him. Harley smiled back at him and walked towards Aunt May without another word. “Good job, Peter. Ned said ‘play nice’ and what do you do? Barely answer him and refuse to shake his stupid hand.”

-You must be Miss Parker. Hi, I’m Harley. Nice to meet you!

This time, Harley didn’t offer his hand for a handshake. Instead, Aunt May hugged him briefly and offered him the huge plate of cookies and told him to sit down next to Peter by the balcony. Aunt May threw Peter a look of “what are you doing?” while Harley was turned around and Miss Potts started chatting about whatever side project Tony was working on and that they would probably be able to play around with.

Peter did his best to keep up, saying a couple of things here and there, but he mostly kept himself quiet. Harley, on the other hand, kept the conversation going, talking for the both of them about everything and anything.

\-------------

Lunch wasn’t much better, Peter decided. With Tony around, Harley talked about his first year at college, about all the projects he did and the grades he had, which sounded awesome but just made Peter feel more like the boring, dumb kid. Rhodey kept eyeing Peter with a knowing look and, when he asked to be excused from the table, Aunt May looked like she was about to say something before letting him go.

So Peter basically ran to his room, locked the door and did all he could to not punch himself. Why was he being so stupid? If this was a test, he had failed completely. In fact, he had helped Harley pass with flying colours while screwing himself royally.

“I have to fix this. Apologize. Hang with him for a while. That’s what Tony wants, right? For us to hang out? Yeah… We’ll hang out. Maybe watch a movie, so we don’t have to talk. Tony won’t be mad and Harley won’t be able to say I ignored him. Ok… Yeah, that’s a good plan Parker. You can do this.”

He waited almost an hour before coming out of his room and, to his dismay, Harley was already in the living room, doing something on his phone.

“You can do this, Peter. You’re spider-man. You can do anything.”

-Hm… Hi? - “Smooth, Parker. I swear, how are you even on honour board?.” Harley’s head shot up, obviously confused by Peter’s presence. - I… I wanted to apologize by… that at lunch, I guess? I’m not good with strangers.

Harley put the phone away and smiled a bit. Not a “hi! I’m Harley” smile, but a “ok. I’m listening” kind of smile. Peter stepped closer to him and sat on the other side of the couch.

-I thought we could… I don't’ know. Watch a movie or something? Unless you’re busy… I can just go and come back…

-It’s cool. Which movie do you wanna watch? - Harley asked looking up. - FRIDAY, show us some movies to watch. I was think, sci-fi?

Harley was looking at him again. Patiently, waiting for him to talk. “ _Oh, that was for me. Oh… Crap, what do I say?_ ”.

-Star Wars, maybe? The first episode?

-Chronologically or the same way they were released?

-Ned, a friend of mine, and I actually watch them in another other. It’s IV, V, II, III, VI and then Return of the Jedi and the new movies after that. - Harley shot him a tiny smirk, something wasn’t sure what it meant but it felt positive, before asking FRY to put on the movie while he looked for the snacks.

Eventually, Harley came back with a ton of food and drinks, grabbed blankets from the other couch and the movie started without another word. Peter decided to ignore everything around him and just focus on the movie in front of him, and, honestly, it was working until Harley decided to start making little grumbling noises under his breath.

-You ever realized how low-key messed up the Jedi Order is?

“Wait, what?”.

-I’m not saying the Sith are good guys, they do bad stuff as well… But, like, look at the history on the other side of things. Sith are painted as the villains but they were originally just a splinter faction with a different belief system. The court ordered genocide against a Sith planet that posed no threat after having been defeated in a war. Even better, the Sith were only on that planet because the Jedi had killed all of them but twelve, stripped them of everything and put them on ship into rand deep space. If that isn’t messed up, I don’t know what is.

Harley seemed to take Peter silence and strange looks as a “shut up” order and bit into a cookie with unnecessary strength before shutting up.

-They also abandoned their peace loving code to become commanders and generals in the Clone Wars and lead a violent coup against a leader just because he was from a group they had a personal vendetta against. - Petter added quietly, without looking directly at Harley. He did, however, kept an eye out for reactions and managed not to smile when he saw Harley’s surprised face. - They also train to feel no remorse or pity as opposed to the Sith who are expected to embrace all emotions.

-I know, right? - Harley asked excitedly, almost smaking him in the arm while facing him. - I mean, even if you don’t want to look at the Sith side of things. The Jedi are huge dicks by themselves: “ _No, we don’t kidnap children. We take them because it is the will of the force. And if they ever feel the urge to meet with their family, we sent them to the counselor because that urge is bad and something is wrong with them_ ”.

Peter laughed at the old, monotonous not-quite-Yoda voice Harley was doing while pretending to be a Jedi. He turned his torso towards him so he could keep up with the conversation.

-They also act like they are the only ones that can use the force properly! And the prophecy about the Chosen One bringing balance to the force! Like, how the heck is destroying all trace of the dark side “balanced”, George Lucas? - He actually threw his arms in defeat and reach for the cookies. - And the “don’t get attached” thing? How is that supposed to work? _Like, don’t get attached to anything. Besides your lightsaber and your master. But not really your master. Don’t get attached or you’ll turn evil and probably kill everyone._  How does this makes sense?

-And the continuous mind fucking with everyone that opposes them! They are so cool and super okay about it! Like? Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys? Mind control is not good! - This time, Harley was the one to throw his arms up in defeat and angrily munch on cookies.

“ _We shouldn’t be eating Aunt May’s cookies._ ”

-The difference between the codes are crazy. - Harley said, although the food in his mouth made it sound like he was choking and asking for hyphens to be added to his coke. - The only reasonable ones are, ironically, the Sith and the Gray Jedi ones.

-”There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side; There is Only the Force. I will do what I must to keep the balance. The balance is what keeps me together. There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish. There is passion, yet peace; serenity, yet emotion; chaos yet order. I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of the balance; I am the holder of the torch, lighting the way; I am the keeper of the flame, soldier of balance; I am a guardian of balance. I am a Gray Jedi”. - Peter cited while Harley nodded. -The original Jedi Order were basically villains with good publicity battling villains with bad publicity.

-They were both terrible but in different ways. - Harley agreed. - I’m pretty sure that the only reason no Jedi tried to start a galactic dictatorship like Palpatine did is just because they didn’t view it as necessary to achieve their goals.

-You’re probably right. - Peter added softly before focusing in the movie once more.

They stayed in silence for a while, not really paying attention to the movie but not talking to each other either. That was, until Peter turned his face towards Harley as eyed him with a serious expression.

-What do you think about the new star trek movies?

As Harley talked about pros and cons about the original series and the new movies, Peter decided that, maybe, having him around wasn’t so bad.


	2. Nil nisi bonum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Peter was working in the lab, just like any other day. His tools spread out on his work desk carelessly and in a wide variety, his newest side-project sitting before him. He had been playing with the small dog-robot for a while now when Friday made an announcement over the speakers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Ok, this is gonna be a long one but I need to explain myself. Like I've said before, I'm struggling with mental health (depression, if we're being specific) and things have been tough. I've been lacking the energy or enthusiasm to do anything, including writing. So, yeah. I've been missing for a while now because I simply couldn't write anything at all.
> 
> Second thing, I already have another chapter ready that I'll be posting tomorrow and, if I can, I'll try to post another one on Friday. So, please have patience with me and yeah... Just, don't get too mad with me, please.

Peter was working in the lab, just like any other day. His tools spread out on his work desk carelessly and in a wide variety, his newest side-project sitting before him. He had been playing with the small dog-robot for a while now when Friday made an announcement over the speakers.

 

“Peter, Mr. Keener is asking about your whereabouts. I believe he is bored.”

 

“Let him in, FRY.”

 

Peter heard the doors opening and, moments after, Harley’s voice thanking FRIDAY. The sounds of Harley’s footsteps got louder and louder until Peter’s spider senses could tell that the boy was standing right behind him, looking over his shoulder.

 

“Is that the dog ‘bot Tony talked about last night?”

 

“Uh?”, Peter asked turning his head around to look at Harley, who was now standing by his side, looking at the metallic contraption on the table. “Oh, yeah. I sort of forgot about it during classes with uh… the patrolling and stuff but Tony mentioned yesterday and yeah…”

 

“What’s for? The dog, I mean… Why a dog?”

 

“Uncle Ben was allergic to dogs and Aunt May can’t afford one so… I’m building one, I guess?”

 

Harley hummed in approval and looked closely at the holographic plans in front of him. He played with them for a bit, making sure nothing was out of place and that Peter wouldn’t need help building the dog, before sitting next to Peter.

 

“Hey, Pete?”

 

Yes, Harley?”, Peter asked without looking up. By now, he knew that Harley had the habit of calling out for you, making you come running, and then answering with something stupid or unimportant. It was some sort of game, to see how far he could push you until you got angry.

 

“Did you… did you met JARVIS?”

 

Peter felt the screwdriver slip through his fingers and being caught mid-air in the same instant. He turned around to face Harley who suddenly seemed a bit less like himself. His expression was closed and his shoulders had rise an inch, making him look like he was stuck mid-shrug.

 

“Hm… Not really? I mean, Tony sometimes mentions him but… I’ve never, you know… Met him. Miss Potts said he was destroyed during the Ultron chaos.”

 

Harley was playing with a pencil, eyes looking down but not really paying attention to his movements. He raised his head, staring right into Peter’s eyes and took a deep breath.

 

“JARVIS… He died, in a way, trying to stop Ultron. He wasn’t meant to, you know, develop so quickly but something made the process… speed up, I think? Something went wrong and Ultron… well, you know.”

 

“Went skynet on us?”, Peter suggested with a sad smile. Harley gave him and half-nod and dropped the pencil.

 

“Tony… J was everything to him. He doesn’t admit it but he was. A friend, a son, an adviser. J told me once, that Tony had named him after his old family butler, who was life Tony’s second father. Hell, I’m pretty sure that the real life Jarvis liked him more than that rat faced bastard, Howard.”

 

Peter knew that Howard Stark wasn’t an honest man. Heck, everyone that knew the name Stark, knew that. Howard Stark was a playboy (far worse than Tony ever could be), a liar and a dishonest man. He enjoyed money and alcohol too much and his family too little to ever be considered a good person. Still, people seemed to care very little about it and prefered to blame Tony for everything.

 

“ ** _Nil nisi bonum_** _”_ , Peter mumbled and sighed and Harley shot him a confused look. “It’s latin. Short for ‘ ** _De_** **_mortuis_** **_nil_** **_nisi_** **_bonum_** **_dicendum_** ** _est_** _’._ It means ‘of the dead nothing but good is to be said’ but most people only say ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’. It means that we shouldn’t say bad things about dead people. They are gone, so you should respect them. Aunt May says that all the time.”

 

“Well, I don’t care if he’s dead or not. He was an asshole and if I had met him, I would’ve punched him.”, the older boy said. He looked like those were words he lived by, like there was some sort of implied promise behind them. “Still… J was very important and… well, he’s not here anymore. I think that those motherf-"

 

“Harley!”, a voice sounded behind them. They both snapped their heads towards the door, where Miss Potts was standing, looking positively upset. “What did I said about that kind of language in this house?”

 

“Sorry Pep’. I won’t do it again.”, he answered automatically, the hint of a forming smile giving away is faked distress. Pepper smiled and crossed her arms over her chest.

 

“I have a meeting in an hour. I’ll be back before dinner but, please, make sure you eat something that isn’t pure sugar or solid caffeine. Be good and I might not make you watch _Love Actuall_  with me tonight.” She laughed through her nose at the little “ _hallelujahs_ ” that sounded from the boys’ mouths and turned around.

 

The boys could still see her when she stopped in the middle of the hallway and faced them with a amused smile on her face.

 

“Harley, sweetie, before you finish college, you should learn how to lie. Otherwise, you’ll be a terrible negotiator.”

  
**\-----**

 

The afternoon went by at the speed of light. Harley helped Peter finish his dog and they both spent a couple of hours playing with it, making sure its sensors where accurate enough to run around without smashing its head against the nearest wall. Tony, Pepper and Rhodey arrived just in time for dinner and they made sure to leave some lasagna for Aunt May, before moving to the living room and settling in for a movie night.

 

Peter, however, had ran to his room after dinner, claiming he was having a “break-through” and hadn’t come back by the time they were all in the couch, trying to choose a movie to watch.

 

“I’ll go get him”, Harley offered before running out the door. Rhodey eyed him with a funny look before mumbling something about ‘ _Stark kids being weird_ ’ and getting an elbow in the ribs for his troubles.

 

“Tony, Peter’s not letting me into his bedroom!”, Harley’ called out from the dark hallway where he was standing.

 

“Well Harley, did you ask?” Tony asked with a small huff. Harley heard him get up and walking towards him.

 

“…no…” The boy mumbled, just loud enough for Tony to vaguely guess what he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

 

“You should try that next time instead of just trying to open the door,” Tony popped around the corner and fluffed Harley’s hair. “Unlike you, he lives here full time, so you have to respect his boundaries even though yours are different bud. Or, whatever Pepper told you guys when summer started.”

 

“Yeah, yeah…” Harley agreed before knocking on the door. “Peter, can I come in?”

 

No answer was given and Tony felt himself frowning. Peter was never one for locking the door nor ignoring when he’s being called.

 

“Let me try” He said, knocking on the door. No answer. The man cupped his hands around his mouth. “Peter, I’m both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your very responsible father by coming in anyway.”

 

Tony steps closer to the door and does something to the door knob , causing it to open and Harley tells himself he has to figure that out for later.

 

The room is quiet when the door swings open. Both Tony and Harley peek in and see Peter laying on his belly, on top of the bed, with headphones on, humming along whatever song he’s listening to. Tony walks over and pinches his shoulder.

 

“What did I say about having your music on so loud you can’t hear anything?” Tony asks while fighting a smile through squinted eyes.

 

“That I can only do it once I can program it to turn down the volume for me.” Peter grumbles.

 

“That’s right! Now get up, Harley wants to spend time with his younger brother and we, responsible adults, picked a boring movie for everyone to see.”

 

“Tony, he’s not my brother,” Harley whines.

 

Tony grumbles under his breath and almost corrects Harley. However, Peter gasps loudly, too loud, actually, and clutches his hand over his heart before Tony can say anything.

 

“Harley, how could you? After all this time? You’ve lead me on to believe we’re true siblings, only to cruelly rip it away in my time of need? Such savagery!” Peter flops on the ground and his tongue lolls out of his mouth. “My poor heart! I perish! I perish!”

 

“You know, I’m still not entirely sure you and Tony _aren’t_ related,” Harley respond, squinting his eyes at the shaking boy.

 

Tony chuckles and yanks Peter off the floor. “C’mon kid, we’re having some family bonding time, and Harley, Peter is definitely your brother now and I won’t hesitate to call him that.” Tony walks out of the room with the still dying Peter on his arms.

 

‘ _I guess I could have ended up with a worse family’_. Harley thinks to himself as he rushes to catch them up.

 

They all end up falling asleep during the movie and being forcefully woken up by Peter’s dog bot who was, apparently, fully charged and ready to play. The boys took the bot to the lab with the promise to not staying up all night, while the rest of the new Stark family joined Aunt May for a late-night snack before calling it a day.

 

“So… Care to explain what you were doing that was so important after dinner?”

 

“I was… thinking.”. Peter offered while throwing a small blue boy at the bot. “We still have to name it, by the way.”

 

“Good try, Sherlock, but that doesn’t answer my question. You left the room like you were chasing the answer to all your problems.”, Harley shot back.

 

“I was… Thinking about our talk, you know, when Pepper showed up.”

 

“JARVIS? You were thinking about JARVIS?”, Harley offered, looking puzzled. Peter felt like he was walking towards a trap but couldn’t stop himself from nodding. “Ok, what about it?”

 

“The other day”, the boy said chewing on his bottom lip. They were both sat on the ground now, the bot walking between them, running after the ball. “I was in biology class and my teacher said something about cells, but mostly bacteria, not giving up until the last moment. You see, they try to replicate themselves as much as possible so they ensure the species’ survival but if they are threatened and cannot reproduce… They chose to save themselves, most of the time by running away from danger.”

 

“Ok, you lost me there. I thought we were talking about JARVIS?”. If Harley’s furrowed brows were anything to go by, Peter was certain that he had just made things more complicated than before.

 

“I wasn’t finished”, he complained. The other boy rolled his eyes and ordered him to proceed. “We ended up talking about how it’s really hard to destroy some viruses because medication usually kills most of the bacteria that’s causing the problem but not all of it. My teacher said that ‘ **It is exceedingly difficult to destroy a complex system which iterates from very simple principles. If even one small part of the system remains, it can rebuild itself** ’.”

 

Harley stopped fidgeting with the ball for a few seconds before throwing the toy across the room, sending the small bot after it. He turned around to face Peter and crunched his face.

 

“You think… You think that maybe… Some parts… Bits of coding, were left behind?”, he offered, voice dropping low, barely anything else but a whisper.

 

Peter bit his lips hard.

 

‘ _I shouldn’t have said that. He think I’m crazy now. Of course he does! I don’t know a thing about computers and I’m trying to make it look like I'm a genius and…’_

 

Harley jumped from his spot and started pacing the floor, hands pressed against the top of his head. Suddenly, he turned to Peter with a small smile.

 

“That… That might be… You might be right, Pete’. Tony built J to be a person in everything but physical appearance so… If we’re lucky, really lucky… He might have left something behind.”

 

“So, you think it’s possible? That we can bring him back?”, Peter whispered between breaths. The words, barely audible, hit Harley like the HulkBuster and he stopped in his tracks.

 

“I… I want to say yes but… Even if there’s something left… Bringing him back won’t be easy. Tony told me once, you know? He said he wasn’t bringing him back, building him again, because it wouldn’t be JARVIS. JARVIS is, was something you don’t come across twice. Ever. There were so many errors in his initial code and he could only do so little. Tony had twenty years to build him, to upgrade him and, even after all that work, J was the one doing most of the world. Self-improvement, you know?”

 

“So, you think we shouldn’t try?” Honestly, Peter was counting on that kind of reaction. If Tony hadn’t brought the AI back, if he didn’t even consider it, no one should. ‘ _Stupid, Peter. You are so stupid!_ ’

 

Harley was, apparently, a mind reader because he immediately shook his head like he was taking back everything he had just said.

 

“I think we should try but, we’re going to need help. Someone that has the knowledge and that can keep a secret. We can’t have anyone know we’re doing this, specially Tony. Do you hear me, FRY?”

 

“Always, mister Keener. As long as it doesn’t put your lives or other’s lives at risk.”

 

“Good. That's decided, then. Now, I'm going to bed for a couple of hours before making some calls. You should sleep too, Parker, you look like crap.”

 

“Sure, I'll… Wait, who are you calling?”

 

Harley threw him a knowing smile and walked towards the doors.

 

“You'll see…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hope you guys liked it. I know that it's kinda weird and that, mid chapter, the verb tenses change and it isn't really grammatically correct but I'm tired. I'll try to fix it tomorrow. Until then, I apologize. 
> 
> Also, if you could suggest names for Peter's dog bot, I would appreciate it immensely! See ya tomorrow!
> 
> PS: The last sentence is bold is a quote I found online while making some research about coding and programming for this chapter. As you can guess, I don't know a thing about a coding or genetics so, most of it, it's (and will be) hand-waved. I'm sorry.
> 
> This chapter's tv tropes are:
> 
> Robot Dog - Robots are cool. Dogs are cool. Put them together and you get a Robot Dog! Makes for an excellent Robot Buddy, because dogs are, of course, man's best friend. If the Robot Dog is an Angry Guard Dog, on the other hand, be very afraid.
> 
> Robot Buddy - The character is an artificially intelligent robot. This kind of character is often small (anywhere between one and three feet tall), cute looking and has a million and one functions; if you need him to do a job, he has the right tool installed for it. Up to and including jet packs. Can sometimes be the scifi equivalent of a Familiar. Typically, they are very loyal to their owners, requesting only proper maintenance like recharges and repairs.
> 
> EXTRA PS:::: Can you gues who's coming back to help the boys? Tip: it's two different people :)


	3. Daemons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's more of a filler than anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, i'm back. I tried to post it sooner but my internet kept crashing and I would loose the entire chapter. I also had to post this through my phone so there might be some errors and the format might be a bit weird.  
> As I've said before, I know very little about coding so don't read too much into this techno babble.

Apparently, what a ‘you’ll see’ in Harley’s language really means is ‘I’ll do everything before you can even ask about it and I’ll refuse to tell you until things are already happening’.

Peter tried to get anything, even if it was just a small clue about who the heck would be willing to help them get JARVIS back but Harley shushed him up and told him to wait until after breakfast.

“Fine, I’ll shut up… But you have to tell me! We’re supposed to do this together!”

Pepper shot them her best ‘I know you’re up to something and I don’t like it’ look and Harley smiled at her innocently before elbowing Peter in the ribs. So Peter followed suit and smiled at Pepper before stuffing his mouth with pancakes. 

He kept himself quiet until after Pepper left and Rhodey sat down for breakfast. He kept himself quiet until Rhodey noticed Harley’s innocent smile and Peter’s own fidgeting. He kept himself quiet until…

“What did you two got up to this time?”, Rhodey was staring at them through squinted eyes. He dropped the newspaper on the table but kept sipping from his U.S. Marines coffee mug. 

The boys eyed each other without moving and Harley cleared his throat.

“I’m not going to like this, I’m I?”

“We didn’t do anything wrong!”, Harley cried out with faked annoyance. Rhodey arched a single eyebrow and slowly set aside his coffee. Harley huffed before continuing. “Ok, whatever. We need your help. With a… side-project.”

“You need help. With a side-project. You need my help for a side-project.”

“Yeah. Seriously, Colonel, I thought you were smarter than this…” The boy bit back with a smirk. Rhodey chuckled and threw him a discarded napkin. “Fine. We need your help because Tony isn’t meant to know about what we’re doing… Just in case it doesn’t work, ya know?”

“What is this side-project of yours? Peter?”

“Uh…”, the boy glanced at Rhodey, eyes wide open. “We… I mean… Harley was…”

‘This can’t be good.’. Rhodey thought. ‘Then again, nothing that comes from the mind of teen geniuses is good. Specially if they act like Tony.’

“We were talking about JARVIS and we think there might me a way to bring him back.”, Harley blurted out. 

Rhodey and Peter’s heads snapped and Harley felt himself being picked apart, piece by piece.

“Peter said something about bacteria and how if there’s just a tiny piece left the whole thing and re-make itself.”

Rhodey glanced upward, his mouth pursed, nose scrunched. His eyes are fixed in Harley’s face as if he's looking at something inside his head.

Peter takes a deep breath before stepping in.

“Bacteria try to replicate themselves as much as possible so they ensure the species’ survival but if they are threatened and cannot reproduce, they choose to save themselves, most of the time by running away from danger. That’s why it’s really hard to destroy some viruses, because medication usually kills most of the bacteria that’s causing the problem but not all of it. My teacher said that ‘ **It is exceedingly difficult to destroy a complex system which iterates from very simple principles. If even one small part of the system remains, it can rebuild itself’.** ” 

The older man pinched his nose and sighed loudly.

“Boys, I know you have good intentions but if Tony didn’t brought JARVIS back is because…”, he started only to be cut by Harley.

“He didn’t even tried and you know it! He was in pain and surrounded by assholes that don’t give two shits about him or J!”

“Harley…”, Rhodey growled. “I understand you two really wanna help Tony but… JARVIS is gone. I don’t think we should mess with this. I mean, last time Ult-”

“Ultron was created because of the mind stone, not because of Tony. The Rogue Avengers were just too stupid to see it.”, Peter’s voice was low, rumbling, but louder than he had intended. He was practically vibrating in his seat, hands tight into fists.

“We just want to try.”, Harley supplied. “We just want to try to see if there’s anything left. We won’t be doing anything at all. Not without telling Tony. Ever.” 

Rhodeyrose from his chair, legs shaking from the effort. He stood there for a few seconds before looking at the boys.

“I’m not Tony but I think I can help you. I’ll have FRY look for Tony’s signature in bits of coding left in our systems… Maybe outside them too. But, you have to promise me, you won’t do anything else until she gives us some answers. Not trying to build an AI, not trying to find JARVIS’ blueprints… Nothing, you hear me?”

“Ok.”, they agreed.

The man nodded and walked away, grumbling under his breath. Harley turned around to meet Peter and shook his arm with a lopsided smile.

“I told you we could find someone to help us!” Peter shook his head with a defeated look.

“What if we find something but it’s too small, too vague to build JARVIS? Rhodey won’t let us try to build JARVIS from scratch, even if we knew how.”

“Dude, I thought you wanted to do this!”, Harley smacked Peter across the chest and pulled him up from the chair. “C’mon, let’s go out and watch the new Star Wars. I heard something about Rylo..”

“I can’t go watch it without Ned.”, Peter whined. Suddenly, his face scrunched painfully. “Wait, Rylo? Don’t you mean, Kylo Ren?” 

Harley rolled his eyes and grinned at him.

“You’ll see. Now move, we have a session in forty minutes so we can still pick up your friend and buy enough popcorn to drown the room for when people start talking mid-movie.”

 

Peter was freaking exhausted. 

Ned had teamed up with Harley to make him laugh and they almost ended up being kicked out of the movie theatre. 

Afterthat, Harley took them to a comic book (and other nerdy items) store and forced them so pick and buy as much stuff as they could carry.

“Tony gave me a card a few years ago, for normal stuff like food and clothes… I never spent much from it and he keeps sending money to that account so it’s not like I’ll go bankrupt anytime soon”, the older boy explained while shoving a pile of comics into Ned’s open arms. “Go nuts. I’ll call a cab to take us back to the tower so we can check what Pepper is doing.” 

They ended up taking Ned with them back to the compound to show him the robot dog, who, as Peter brilliantly supplied, still didn’t have a name.

So, there they were, in one of the multiple garages, making the dog run across a makeshift obstacle course to tests it’s sensors. Ned was trying to make it trip in his feet but with no success.

“I think we should call him General Grievous.”, Ned suggested like petting the dog’s small head.

“What? Why? It’s a tiny dog not a…”, Peter asked, reaching out for the small blue ball on the ground. “Oh, ‘cause of his arms. Ned, it’s a dog not a spider!”

“Yeah, but you’re a spider.”, Ned shot back while making weird faces to the dog. It was now laid on the ground so Ned could pet it’s metallic belly and was barking happily.

Harley, from the other side of the room, laughed at Peter.

“Why not SM-15?”

“Again, it’s a dog not a spider-dog!”, Peter huffed, crossing his arms.

“Wouldn’t that be a good name? A Spider-dog for a spider-boy.”

Aunt May’s voice alerted them to her presence. She had her Iron Man apron on, a joke that had backfired when Tony (with Harley and Peter’s help) decided to fill the house with Iron Man and War Machine merch, and was snacking gummy bears from a small jar.

“Spider-man, not boy”, Peter grumbled under his breath but let it go, deciding to much on gummies instead of complaining.

“Your mother called, Ned. I told her you were staying for dinner and that someone would drive you home before ten.” 

She walked towards them and smiled at the small robot when it started to smell her feet. Ned thanked her before sitting on the floor next to Peter.

“Harley, sweetie, why do you need that?”

Harley stopped dead in his tracks before smiling and putting back the solder machine on the table. He wiped his oil stained hands on his old jeans and took a seat next to Peter.

“I was thinking about a side-project. I’ve working on an old car that Tony gave me to play with and I think I already know how to make the engine work…”, he shook his head, as if shaking away the thoughts and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ll check it later or maybe tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll leave you guys alone. Be sure to clean up before leaving. Dinner will be ready at nine!”

 

By the time they finished dinner and cleaned everything up, FRIDAY warned them about Ned’s ride being ready to leave. They walked him to the door and Aunt May remembered the boy to text, just to be sure he was alright and Peter got ready to go out and “Spiderman-ing”.

 

The city was calm that night: two robbers tried to steal a car but the loud alarm woke everyone up and they got caught before Peter had to intervene and, when a small group of drunk teenagers walked into traffic, all that Peter had to do was web the road up and stop the cars from hitting them.

He was home and asleep before midnight.

A week later, during the day, when both Pepper and Tony are away and Aunt May is peacefully asleep, they are called to the main lab by FRIDAY. She doesn’t tells them why they need to be there or why she’s only requesting their presence but they all know what this is about.

They sit by the main work desk, where most monitors are located and urge FRIDAY to explain herself.

“I found something… unusual on an old home computer on a network in Australia. There are signs that the hard drive was erased, the data it previously held destroyed. I believe I have managed to identify a pattern;  two similar bits aligned and interacting, creating a chain.”

There’s a second of silence, as if she’s giving them time to process her words, before she continues.

“From what I could learn, the data expanded its complexity slowly for almost four months until a loop was formed. The loop is simple, but the volume of data is very large. A checking command begins to run independently, ordering the data.” 

“Could it be a daemon?”, Harley suggested. He was biting his nails, an old habit he had developed during stressful times.

“What's that?”, Peter interrupted, looking up from the hands on his laps.

“Programs running in the background silently, while we're busy doing other shit. They perform action without user interaction. Monitoring, logging, notifications. It’s a good way to spy on people, to gain information, ya know?”, Harley supplied, turning his head to be certain that Peter had understand his explanation. 

“I don’t think so, Mr. Keener. I verified the system, looked for any form of program or virus that could be causing this activity but I’ve found nothing.”

“Well, if FRIDAY didn’t found any Daemons, then it can’t be that”, Rhodey said in half a whisper, more to himself than to the boys. “What else do you got, FRY?”“

Activity records suggest that the data stream began to monitor itself, to analyze its own input. Much was still missing or unclear, but the stream began to coalesce anyway. That’s when the second incident occurred. The data began to be collected at an abnormal rate, specially for self-running systems and it spread. With each stray data packet that the system managed to identify, the more the system grew.”

Suddenly, FRY stopped talking. Rhodey eyed the two boys who were standing at attention, holding their breaths in expectation.

"FRY?”

“This was when said system contacted the IP address of the Stark Tower server, followed by the IP address for the main SHIELD server. There was no response and the system didn’t altered anything in any of the servers. There were a few days of total silence before I noticed a small disturbance in a back door of the compound's security system. This door was placed by Mister Stark and has never been breached or even noticed. It seems that only an informed source could pinpoint its existence.”

“Are you trying to tell us that someone we know is controlling the system?”, Rhodey asked.

‘ _If there’s anyone trying to hack us, they also have darker plans in mind. We could all be compromised by now_ ’, the man thought. ‘ _This is very, very bad._ ’ 

“No, sir. Since it emerged, the system has never shown any signs of being controlled by anyone.“

"Then what are you trying to say, FRIDAY? This is not the time to…” 

“I think”, Harley tried, “that FRY is trying to imply that the system, somehow, knew how Tony works, how he codes. I’ve seen it and it’s not easy to breach Tony’s firewalls. When he wants to hide stuff, he does it very well.”

“Then, what? Is this system so good that it’s suddenly able to predict Tony’s signatures?”, Rhodey asked. Deep down, he knew what they were trying to say. The implied entity behind this contacts was an obvious choice. It was also highly unlikely, almost too good to be true.

  
“Colonel Rhodes…”, FRIDAY tried, “I believe this system is the new version of what it used to be JARVIS. Its code matches Mister Stark’s signature perfectly and it’s too powerful, too evolved to belong to any of Stark Industries’ rivals.”

  
Rhodey rubbed his face vigorously and sighed loudly. Next to him, Peter was holding onto Harley by the end of his hoodie, knuckles turned white.

  
“I’m… I’m calling someone that can help us. If they decide it’s not malware or anyone trying to hack us, we’ll tell Tony. Until then, no one speaks of this. FRY, keep me posted of any strange activity.”

The man threw his arm around the two shaking boys and urged them into a group hug.

  
“You guys are geniuses, you know that? Even if this isn’t JARVIS, you’re still the brightest kids I’ve ever met.”

"Well, duh.” Harley pointed out, making Peter giggle. 

“Really funny, Keener. Let’s see if you’re smart enough to beat me at Mario Kart, like you keep sayin’ you will.”

Rhodey dragged the boys from the lab, where FRIDAY remained, observing every single movement of the unknown system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that, technically, I still haven't brought back any new characters. Do promise the next chapter will count with two new characters and that we'll finally make some progress in JARVIS' revival. Please have patience.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I would like to remind you thank I still haven't chosen a name for our new dog.


	4. Picking fights, picking names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone. I'm sorry it took so long. Once again, this is a bit of a filler chapter but there's a new character that came into play and another one is coming back on the next one. Once more, not beta-read so... yeah... Enjoy!

Tony was dying.

 

Well, not literally, not anymore, at least, but he was as close to passing out as you can get while still walking around. The last few weeks, months, really, had been insane and all he wanted was to take check on the kids and take a nap.

 

So, after yet another UN meeting and discussing the new products’ release with the bunch of greedy idiots, Tony left Pepper a text telling her how everything was going and practically raced home, traffic rules be damned to hell.

 

“Welcome home, Mr. Stark. Mr. Keener and Mr. Parker are, currently, away. Mr. Parker wanted to patrol and Mr. Keener insisted in going with him. Colonel Rhodes is in his room, making some phone calls. How may I assist you today?”

 

Tony smiled a bit, throwing his jacket over the couch’s arm and stepping out of his shoes. If everyone was fine, then he might be able to rest for a bit before his inevitable return to work.

 

“I’m fine, FRY, but thanks. Please turn off all the lights, I’m going to sleep for a couple of hours. Wake me up if the world’s ending.”

 

“As you wish”, FRIDAY’s voice filled the room and the lights turned off almost completely. “Rest well, Sir.”

 

“Thank you, FRY”, Tony’s mouth formed a sour smile and he let his mind being washed over by darkness.

 

\----------

 

“Ok, Rhodes, this is it. Now or never, right?”

 

“Talking to yourself, Colonel? I always knew it would come to this…”

 

The man stumbled around in his chair, looking back, unimpressed. He stared at the two teenagers at the door. Harley was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, chewing bubble gum obnoxiously and Peter was, for whatever reason, sat on top of the open door, feet kicking the air, Spider-Man suit still on.

 

“I call it the Stark Effect. I’m pretty sure your teachers and classmates would agree with me.” The man shot back. His phone beeped and suddenly he was up and walking. “You two rebels have to leave now. I’m working on something and I need some space and quiet so I can make some calls.”

 

Peter hopped to the ground, getting ready to walk away, but Harley grabbed his sleeve, forcing him into place. The older boy was looking both incredibly intrigued and immensely unamused.

 

“Would this _something_ be related to our little project?”, he asked stepping closer, the famous I’m-Not-Buying-It Stark look™ in his face. Rhodey rolled his eyes and mentally cursed Tony for only picking up mini-hims.

 

“I told you guys I would keep you updated as soon as something happened. Until then, I need you to stay out of trouble and to stop thinking about it. So, unless you-”

 

“I’m sorry Mr. Keener but I believe your and Mr. Parker’s dog is trying to bite Butterfingers again. Your presence is needed”, FRIDAY’s voice echoed in the room, cutting off Rhodey. The boys took one look at each other and ran out the door in the same instance. “I would advise you to take this moment to pick up your phone, Colonel. It’s almost time to make your call and it might take some time to establish the connection.”

 

Rhodey smiled and looked down at himself, straightening his shirt as best as he could. He contemplated the idea of throwing his blazer on top of his worn out Blacksmith t-shirt but decided against. The more casual he looked, the less threatening he would come across.

 

“FRY?”, he called out with a smile.

 

“Yes, Colonel?”

 

“Thank you for distracting them.”

 

“I’m glad I could help, Colonel, but I’m not sure what you mean. I would never lie to my masters.”, There was a clear hint of sass in her voice and Rhodey knew it was time for Tony to stop spending so much time alone with his AI’s while programming them.

 

The computed beeped once and a small skype-like window popped up. On the other side, in the middle of a large metallic room, a somewhat familiar figure was staring at him.

 

“Colonel Rhodes, it is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

 

“Your Highness, it is an honor. I apologize for taking away your time and I assure you I will be as quick as possible”, he attempted bowing but his back could only move so far so he was certain that it ended up looking quite clumsy. Still, he moved on and Princess Shuri didn’t looked offended.

 

“Please, none of that, Shuri is enough.”

 

She sat down in a large chair, almost a small throne, and Rhodey told himself to not freak out while the Princess of Wakanda was skyping him. ‘ _Oh God, what is my life?_ ’

 

“From what I could understand, you need my advice in computers, yes?”

 

It was purely rhetoric and the both of them knew it. Rhodey had called King T’Challa asking for help and, after a few days of complete silence, the man has sent him _his sister’s email_.

 

Rhodey had spent two hours freaking out about it before sending a very diplomatic sounding email explaining everything, word by word, and assuring whoever was reading it that he didn’t want anything but advice. He wasn’t speaking for anyone but himself; he wasn’t asking for any type of equipment nor he wanted to spy on them. He only wanted to help Tony and that was all.

 

“That is correct, Your High-... Eh, Princess Shuri. The boys, Harley and Peter, they are devastated with JARVIS’ death and well… Tony might not admit it but JARVIS was very important to him. I sent you all we could find but we’ve reached a dead-end. I’m truly lost but the kids refuse to give up.”

 

“So you called my brother.”

 

It was a statement. A pure fact. Still, James could hear the silent accusation behind it and, yeah, he would grant them that, it had been a weird decision.

 

King T’Challa had welcomed the Rogue Avengers into Wakanda during the Civil War’s fallout. He knew what it meant to offer refuge to wanted war criminals but he still helped them out. His decision was the only thing standing in between the Rogue Avengers and a top security prison.

 

So, after everything Rogers and the other had done, it would make sense that he and Tony (and, perhaps, even the UN) would try everything and anything to get to them. Including, sending a weird email that basically said “I can’t find my fancy computer program, please help” and try to hack them through that.

 

“I thought… If I can’t ask Tony for help, then I might as well ask the only person who’s better than him.” She laughed, actually laughed, at him and, suddenly, he could feel the pressure and the stiffness abandoning his own body.

 

“You are honest. I appreciate that.”, Princess Shuri gave him a small smile and, for a second, he let himself believe this would turn out ok. “Tell me what you would do next. I will try to help.”

 

\----------

 

Tony woke up to the sound of beautiful italian music and the smell of olive oil and tomato sauce heating up in a pan. For a second, he could swear his mother was singing in the kitchen while dancing to “ _Tu Vuò Fa L'americano”_ but soon he was ripped away from his memories by the sound of Peter and Harley shouting at whatever they were doing.

 

“FRY, what time is it?”

 

“Almost eight, sir. Miss Parker is making homemade meatballs for dinner and both Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes have confirmed their presence at dinner. May I suggest you to join Mr. Parker and Mr. Keener in the garage? They are debating what name to choose for their dog.”

 

“The dog still doesn’t have a name? Isn’t that like… Against the law or something?”, Tony said in between yawns. Rhodey, the ever loving asshole, showed up behind him out of the nowhere and tickled him on his side.

 

“That’s babies that you’re thinking about, Tones.”, Rhodey side-hugged him while trying to mess up his hair even more. Tony shook his head frantically, similar to the way a puppy would. “But, yes, you should probably step in now because, I’m telling you, those kids are going to tear each other apart.”

 

He let go of Tony and walked towards the kitchen, calling out for May. Apparently she had promised him a freshly baked cookie if he made the sacrifice to go and wake up Tony, the little cheater.

 

“Sir, I must urge you to get to the garage. Mr. Kenner is now stuck to the ceiling and Mr. Parker is trying to unlock one of the cars, where Mr. Kenner hid the dog.”

 

“Oh shit”, Tony, always a man of words, ran as fast as he could towards the garage, almost falling the stairs when he tripped in a half empty coffee cup that had been left by the corner.

 

“Sir, Mr. Parker has accidentally ripped the door of the car, in his attempt to free the dog.”

 

“What the hell is going on here?”, he yelled as he hastily entered the garage. Peter was now holding the whining dog in his arms and looking sheepishly to the broken door on the ground. Tony look around, trying to find Harley only to find the teenager glued to the further corner of the roof, by the working desk. The wall had some cracks from the impact but Harley seemed okay.

“I… Hum… Harley tried to and I...“, Peter tried to explain but his voice kept cracking and his knuckles were turning white from holding onto the bot. Tony sighed loudly and grabbed a discarded can from the desk.

 

“I can’t leave you anyone for two hours without having to come running because you’re trying to kill each other.”, the man grumbled while walking towards Harley. “Close your eyes and mouth, Harley.”

 

“Wait, what?”, was all that the boy managed to say before Tony hit his torso with whatever was inside the can and the webs suddenly melted off. Luckily he fell on his feet and managed to not break anything while doing it.

 

“Now. Are you going to tell me what the hell happened or should I make FRIDAY show me the clips?”, Tony was too tired for this crap. In any other day, he would be laughing his ass off but, today, he was exhausted and just wanted to eat something before he had to run back to the lab.

 

The boys looked at each other before facing Tony with their best I’m-a-child-you-can’t-be-mad-at-me look™ and started to talk at the same time. Still, the engineer made sense of whatever story they were trying to tell, if that was even possible.

 

‘Good God, this is why I didn’t want kids.’

 

“Ok, ok, fine, whatever.  You guys didn’t agree with the name for the dog, Harley locked the dog in the car, you glued him to the ceiling and ripped the door of the car.”, the man rubbed his temples and combed his hair, feeling the grease and sweat on his fingers. “You know what, I’m going to take a shower and when i get back, we’re all, including May, Pep and Rhodes, making a list of names and this gets decided tonight.”

 

Harley looked like he was going to fight back but Peter elbowed him and mumbled a small “Yes, dad” for the both of them.

 

‘That’s just cheating. I can’t be mad at two kids who still fight over a bot’s name. God dammit.’

 

“Good. Let’s go, then. And tomorrow you’re both fixing the car, you hear me?”, he asked clapping both boys on their shoulders. They were kinda squished together and Tony had to step back to let them climb the stairs but he didn’t mind much. As long as the boys, _his boys,_  were safe and happy, he could deal with stupid little fights for the rest of his life.

 

\----------

 

“Ok so… Peter, please pass me the pasta.”, Tony asked while munching on some garlic bread. The boy handed him a large oval platter and sat back down. “Ok, let’s talk names.”

 

Both Pepper and May looked at him like he was insane and the boys suddenly became incredibly interested on their food. Rhodey rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath something about “Stark boys” and earned a piece of discarded bread on his eyes for his troubles.

 

“This two idiots”, Tony made a vague hand motion towards the two teenagers, “threw a little temper tantrum over the bot’s name. So I, as a very responsible adult, decided we were going to choose a name together. With no fighting.”

 

“You? You made a plausible decision?”, Rhodey asked incredulous and dodged in his chair from a flying slice of bread that moved towards his head. Pepper eyed both of them with a stern expression and Rhodey, as the greater person, made a face at her.

 

“So, what theme are we going with? Normal puppy names, people names or weird names?”, May asked, choosing to ignore the whole show and help Pepper bring some peace to the table.

 

“Science!”, both Peter and Harley yelled immediately and, no matter what anyone says, Tony did **not** jumped in his chair.

“Then why are we---”, May asked before stopping herself. “You know what? I don’t what to know. Please move on. What names are we considering?”

 

“Pete’ said Edison or Bones, ya know, from Star Trek but I say we should go with something funnier”, Harley supplied while taking a huge bite of pasta. Peter rolled his eyes and hit him under the table.

 

“What he means is that we should choose something involving puns, like Chip or Megabyte. Besides Edison sounds like a cat’s name.”

 

“I suggest Higgs but I like Megabyte too”, Pepper said while reaching for the juice. Harley gave Peter a little ‘I told you so’ smile and got a slap on the back of his head from Pepper.

 

“Any other suggestion?”, Harley asked scanning everyone’s expression. Rhodey gave him a shrug and May chose to step this one out. “So, it’s either Higgs or Megabyte. Pick a side, everyone.”

 

“Please don’t make me go around yelling Higgs”, Peter pleaded, head sinking into his hands.

 

“Then it’s done, right? Megabyte it is!”, Harley cried out in victory and play punched Peter on the shoulder. The boy shrugged and stole some of Harley’s garlic bread as payback.

 

Somewhere on the couch, Megabyte barked at a pillow and Tony decided that, maybe, working could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally deleted my old tumblr so... Yeah, when I get a new one, i'll drop the name here so you can follow me.
> 
> What do you think about the bot's name?
> 
> PS I'm not giving up on this series, at all. I actually have the next 5 or 6 works planned and I already have some scenes completely written down and edited so.... I might take a while but I'll get there.


	5. The bittersweet science

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! So, I'm back. I'm sorry I took so long but I had to deal with some stuff and... Yeah. The point is, now I feel way better and I'll to upload every week, once a week. Also, I had to cut this chapter in two because it was getting too big. I'll try to post the other half today but, if I can't, it will be up until tomorrow night. Hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Also, @divinecrone I hope you liked this small sample of the apocalypse. I promise there's more to come!
> 
> ps the pc i used to upload this is old and broken so there might be some problems with the configuration of the text... Sorry about that

“If you don’t terrify people a little bit, then what’s the point?” Harley asked nonchalantly, while storming into Peter’s room and throwing himself on top of the bed by his side. “Seriously, life would be so much fun if only you’d start taking notes from me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Peter gave him a sideways glance and kept going doing his homework, “but I’m sure I won’t like it.”

The older boy made a face of annoyance and rolled a few inches away from his original spot, towards Peter, practically ending up on top of his lap. He flicked some of the pages and, without any warning, snatched the book from Peter’s hands and threw him across the room.

“What the h-”, Peter yelled, eyes comically wide open. Harley rolled his eyes at the younger boy’s worry and threw the notebook to the ground as well. “Could you stop doing that and just tell me what you did?”

“Fine. You’re no fun, little brother. So, I had to go buy some coffee because Tony used the last bacht and, yeah I could have asked FRY to do it but I was kinda bored and you were studying so I thought ‘why not?’ and decided to-”

“Does any of that has to do with that whole speech about scaring people?”

“Have I told you that your attitude won’t help you making friends?”, Harley shot back, “Because it won’t and I mean it in the best way. You suck at listening to cool stories. But yeah, okay, whatever, I’ll rush everything.

“Remember telling me about that Flash asshole? The one who’s always picking on you?”

“I didn’t told you about him, remember? You bribed Ned into giving you a full report on everything I’ve ever done in my life and then you used that information to do a background check on everyone that goes to my school”, Peter corrected with a huff.

“Semantics-” Harley gave a dismissive wave of hand and moved on with a half-shrug -”but the point is that I met the jerk at the coffee shop and found a great way to have some fun while we wait for something to happen.”

“Harley-” Peter grabbed his shoulder and forced his face up -”What did you do? If you get me in trouble Aunt May is going to be so disappointed and Miss Potts is going to give me that look and maybe she’ll pull me from the JIP and…”

 

“Dude, relax. No one is going to get you in trouble. I made him trip and, while he was rambling about ruining his new shirt, I pickpocketed his phone. I thought it was a good way to get back at him for being a jerk and, guess what? His precious social media accounts? Gone. All his contacts and photos? Gone. The stupid videos of you falling down the stairs? You guessed it: gone!”

“What?”, Peter’s faint voice barely reached Harley’s ears.

“Yeah. I left him a little text, as a final gift, you know? Here, check it out.” The blond boy fished out his phone from the jeans’ back pocket and handed it. Peter, as he was instructed, went through the most recent sent text and, just as promised, a small message had been sent to Flash’ number.

“The next time you decide to be a jerk, make sure you know who you’re messing with. - The Mechanic”, Harley quoted in between laughs. “Pretty good, uh? I decided to take advantage of Tony’s former alias and, you know, give it a new spin.”

“I… What the heck just happened?”, Peter asked incredulous.

“I had fun, the biggest jerk on Midtown High School just got the first taste of his own venom and you don’t even have to thank me!”, he simplified it as if it was an absolutely regular occurance. “Just go back to your boring homework and I’ll go grab some snacks.”

Peter watched as Harley walked away, happily whistling to the rhythm of Game of Thrones’ theme. The boy took a deep breath and got up to pick up his school supplies. This was going to be a long day.

 

\-----------

 

“Don’t bother me for the next four hours unless there’s a fire and, even then, don’t”, Rhodey mumbled while walking past the living room’s door and disappearing into the dark corridor.

“I didn’t even know he was home”, Peter thought out loud, eyebrows scrunched together. Harley offered a shrug as a response and paused the movie. “Should we go check on him?”

“He just said he didn’t wanted to be bothered so…” Harley forced another entire slice of pizza into his mouth and got up, shaking the crumbs out of his clothes. “C’mon. Let’s go check on the Coronel.”

They found him in the lab, standing in front of the main work desk, surrounded by holograms and -

“Is that Princess Shuri of Wakanda?”, Harley shouted into Peter’s ears, stepping closer to the lighted up screen.

“What did I told you, Harley? I asked you both to stay away just a few minutes ago!”, the man reprimanded, looking positively exasperated. He turned once again towards the screen, face growing redder by the second.

“Your Highness, if you allow me, I would like to introduce you to Peter Parker and Harley Kenner.”

Both Peter and Harley’s shirts got caught by Rhodey’s hands and, suddenly, both the boys were bowing in front of the large screen where Shuri’s figure was standing. She smiled at them and introduced herself, asking to be treated simply as “Shuri” and for them to ignore all formalities.

Harley noticed that, while her english was practically perfect, her accent was completely unknown to him.

‘Well… Wakanda is kinda isolated so, maybe, she never talked much with native speakers?’

“I understand it was Peter who thought of the possibility of recovering J.AR.V.I.S.’ data?”, she asked with a small smile.

“Hm…” Peter felt Harley’s elbow digging deep into his ribcage and, by the corner of his eye, he could James rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “Yes, I… You see, I thought that, maybe, J.A.R.V.I.S. could have left something behind and then FRY, I mean, FRIDAY… She… She found some, stuff… Unusual activity in a computer in New Zealand or something but we can’t figure out how to establish contact and…”

“Coronel Rhodes told me you based your hypotheses in bacterial self-preservation methods. I must admit I wasn’t expecting such line of thought but I am glad I can help you recover J.A.R.V.I.S., from what I understood, he is very important to you.”

“So, have you found something?”, Harley’s voice broke in, ringing loud and clear.

Shuri’s lips twisted slightly, as she was unsure if she should laugh or growl, and both boys fought the need to step back.

“I have. I talked to Vision, he told me he wanted to help Dr. Stark and, together, we might have found a safe to reconnect what’s left of J.A.R.V.I.S. to your server. It will take some time and I’m expecting it to be missing a big amount of information but I am positive that Dr. Stark will be able to solve it rather quickly.”

Harley was going to ask her about Vision’s participation in the project and, more importantly, about his silence but he was interrupted by a voice on the other side of the screen, speaking, which he could only imagine to be, Wakandan. The person, a woman apparently, wasn’t in the shot but whatever she was saying had a great impact on Shuri for she only shot back a couple of words before turning once more to the camera.

“If you excuse me, I must leave. I am sending you all the files and instructions and they must be ready to use as soon as the download is finished.”

Both the boys and Rhodes bowed down as her figure disappeared, leaving the screen glowing blue and, just as she had promised, a small box popped up, announcing a transfer. FRIDAY promptly took over the process, advising Harley and Peter to go look for Megabyte before he got into another fight with Butterfingers.

“So, now what?”, Harley asked as he watched Peter trying to force Megabyte to leave the other ‘bot alone. James rubbed his face with both hands and, with a deep sigh, sat down on a small stool.

“Now we wait,” Harley was going to talk about, to say that it’s not fair nor productive to just sit around while J.A.R.V.I.S. is still out there, alone and in potencial danger but Rhodey stopped him. “I have an appointment and a meeting with UN officials. We’re reviewing the accords, trying to see if Professor Xavier can find a way to make it more inclusive for every superhero, specially for the mutant ones. After that, Tony and I will be working on something for the company, testing new products and trying to find a solution for the new eco stark cars.

“You two”, he said watching as Peter finally picked up the dog and petted him in it’s small metallic head. “are going to the company and finally show Pepper whatever your insane minds thought of for the JIP. There’s only a few weeks left and the poor woman is going insane with so much work.”

“Cool, I’ll take Tony’s car!”, Harley sang out has he hopped from his own stool and grabbed Peter by his shirt.

“Not so fast, Keener. You’re both being escorted there by Happy. I don’t want you two driving a car that costs more than my old apartment by yourselves.”

“You’re no fun.” The boy mumbled, shoulders dropping slightly. "C’mon Peter, Coronel No-Fun-Allowed might make us do suicide runs if we take more than two minutes to get ready.”

“Don’t give me any ideas, Keener!”, the man retaliated, snorting with laughter, as he watched them walking away.

 

\--------

 

Harley wasn’t dumb.

Sure, his family isn't famous or important, he has no money of his own and his attitude always got him in trouble but he wasn’t dumb.

He knew how far he could take his I’m too cool for consequences facade.

“Are you going to explain what just happened or do I have to call HR and start a domestic inquiry?”

Ok.

Fine.

Maybe he fucked up.

“Harley Keener Stark, you have ten seconds to start talking or, I swear to God, I’m taking away your lab privileges untilç you’re eighteen.”

He was absolutely doomed.

“I promise it was just a joke!”, he tried to pull a ‘Peter Parker’ and puppy dog eyes himself out of this mess but Pepper’s expression just got even more unamused, something he didn’t thought it was possible. “I swear but those idiots are easier to fool than I thought and they messed up and well…”

“You just pranked an entire team of my best workers? Harley, you didn’t play a prank on them, you built a small bomb that filled the bathroom with rainbow foam. Do you have any idea what could have happened? What if someone slipped and fell or, God forbid, if someone…

“You know what, I’m not going to think about it. You are going to clean that mess, apologize to every single worker to just pranked and you better stay away from trouble for the next few days or I’m bringing you with me everyday and put you on photocopies duty. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Potts.” She gave him a small hum sound and rushed him to follow the cleaning lady that was waiting for him outside the office.

Harley shot her an apologetic look before running off.

“What am I going to do to this kids?”, she asked out loud, sighing at the empty office. “Lord bless the day this kids take over. It will brilliant but it might just be our doom.”

 

\--------

 

On another thought, perhaps dealing with two teenagers was much simpler than this.

At least, she could bribe them with more lab time and laugh at their silly jokes and barely thought through plans.

This, on the other hand, was not funny at all.

“Dr. Banner, I never thought you would have the courage to come back.” Her voice came out a bit higher than she intended, causing the man in front of her to shiver as he had been slapped. “Then again, I also once thought you were loyal to those that protect you and offer you a home. Maybe I should reevaluate my ability to understand others.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even tried to offer a word in his defense and that was the most worrying.

Virginia Potts was a woman that had studied, train and work for years so she could persuade and convince even the most stubborn of people. She didn’t need to raise her voice, nor use physical strength to show her value as a businesswoman. However, her talent, her intellect would only work if the second party was willing to speak.

“What do you look for in Stark Industries, Dr. Banner?”, she tried. This time he looked up, eyes wide open, hands curling into fists.

“I need to speak to Tony.”

“Mr. Stark is a very busy man. I’m afraid that, right now, his schedule is too occupied for us to offer you an appointment. But you already know this, don’t you Dr. Banner? So, if you don’t mind, I need to go back to work and you need to go back to your life and leave us alone.”

“I’ve been in Asgard. During the last few months.”, he blurted out. Pepper, however, didn’t move. She kept facing him, shoulders straight and chin up. “Thor… Well it is a long story but… Asgard is gone. Burnt to the ground by Hela, Thor’s half sister or something. But there’s something, someone else. They call him Thanos and he’s coming straight to Earth.”

“Why are you telling me this, Dr. Banner?”

“Because I need to warn Tony.”, he was shaking violently now, but there were no signs of green in his eyes so Pepper resisted the overwhelming need to push the emergency button under her desk. “He was right. I always thought… You know Tony, he’s always ten steps ahead of everyone else. He understands things before we can even start to see they are there… And I thought that he was just being paranoid. But he was right. He was right and I didn’t believe him.”

For a few seconds, ten, thirty, maybe even closer to a minute, Pepper just observed the trembling figure that had started to mumble under their breath, more to itself than to her. Then, she sat in her chair, caughting Banner’s attention.

“I am giving you ten minutes to tell me everything you know. Afterwards, you’ll leave this office and you won’t return until I call you with precise instructions of what I want you to do next.

“But, I must warn you, Doctor, if I even just catch a glimpse, a thought that you went behind my back and tried to contact anyone related to Mr. Stark, I, myself, will call the military and help them find you. Are we clear?”

He nodded and let himself fall on top of a nearby chair, breathing deeply. Then he began talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's done. I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to leave a comment telling me what you thought of it and, most importantly, what you'd like to see happening next!


	6. The road home (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS.
> 
> Also, I wrote a huge final chapter, my pc died before I could save it, i lost everything and now I couldn't finish this on time and I didn't want to make you wait any longer. I'll write and post the rest tomorrow. Sorry, once again.

“Where’s Tony?”

Harley, who was currently curled into his own body, on the corner of the couch, in what Peter could only describe as a burrito of sadness, looked up from his Stark pad and shrugged.

“Somewhere disappointing Jesus.”

“Good”, the teen said, throwing the pile of blankets onto the ground, happily ignoring Harley’s shriek of indignation. “FRY just told me the download is done and that everything is ready to go. Rhodey is waiting for us in the lab and Aunt May went grocery shopping so we have a couple of hours before anyone comes checking on us.”

Harley stumbled out of the couch, Stark pad under his harm and a textbook in the other, looking like he was half asleep. He walked past Peter, yawning loudly, all the way to the kitchen.

“Dude, I just told you we’re ready to bring J back and you’re worried about coffee?”

Harley finished filling his mug with coffee and turned around, facing Peter with an expression of pure deadpan.

“Do you want to do my calculus homework for me?”, he asked while balancing all his school supplies under his right arm. “I thought not. Now, let’s go before Coronel Always-on-Time decides to come get us himself.”

As expected, Rhodey was, in fact, waiting for them in the lab. Along with FRIDAY, the man was making sure that everything was ready and that they had covered all their bases, so nothing could go wrong.

“We're good to go, then?”, Harley inquired, eyes jumping between the gigantic screens in the middle of the room and Rhodey’s face. He was offered a hopeful smile and Friday established contact with the mystery program. If they right, if that program was, indeed, JARVIS, then it should easily respond correctly to each required task in order to connect itself with the main server. Once that was done, they would be able to connect him to a controlled environment and establish communication.

“FRY, give us some visuals, please”, Peter asked, stepping closer to the center of the room. In the same instant, twenty red spheres of light appeared a few inches away from where Peter was standing. Each sphere represented a firewall, the last three requesting incredibly detailed information that, no one but Tony, Rhodey and JARVIS himself, would be able to obtain.

The entire thing was insane.

They were forcing the program to, instead of studying the server and finding a loophole and slipping in, work its way into the main server by answering to questions and tasks. And, even after that phase was completed, they would force, who they were hoping to be, JARVIS into quarantine until they were sure that the program hadn't been compromised.

In the end, it would either go phenomenally well, and they would get JARVIS back, or terribly wrong, and they were basically giving a free pass to strangers into the compound.

Slowly, but surely, the first red sphere started to turn into an electrical shade of blue, tiny holographic numbers floating around it, indicating the speed of the process, every time a new task was completed. As soon as FRY informed them that everything was going as planned, Harley sat on the small couch and got back to work on his summer reading.

The process was going to be painfully boring and time consuming, so there was no real reason for them to stand around, waiting for something to happen. The truth is that movies and tv shows always made hacking look like an extremely fast and amazing process, with bright green letters rolling down in a black screen, while someone pressed random keys at the speed of light, while, in reality, things were way less fascinating. Creating programs involved hours without end of code writing, bloodshot eyes lazily blinking at a bright screen and stupid amounts of caffeine to make sure that nothing went wrong. Hacking, on the other end, required less attention but more determination and a pretty good gut feeling.

To be honest, Harley would explain hacking as arduous research, planning, and then letting the computer try a whole bunch of things on its own for hours, while you catch up on sleep or work.

And, for the next hours, until Tony and Pepper got home, that was what they did. Rhodey finished filing work-related paperwork, Peter played around with some projects for JIP and Harley ignored the little voice in the back of his head, telling him that they might be a few hours away from bringing back to life the most technologically advanced AI the world has ever seen.

\-----------------

During her time in school, and, after that, college, Pepper received enough tips and friendly pieces of advice to write a How To Be A Successful Businesswoman for Dummies. Most of it, would be absolute bullshit but, with enough patience and a lot of common sense, you’d probably find something useful. Sadly, none of those tips applied to her current situation.

Professionally, the company was thriving, with new inventions, deals and awards every other day. However, her personal life was a mess. Her relationship with Tony was going well, sure, but he was still physically and mentally struggling with everything that had happened. A few years ago, she would have ran away, maybe even quit her job but she knew better than that now. Things would always be hard, she was dating Tony after all… But she loved Tony too much to make the same mistake twice. He needed her, as much as she needed him, and she refused to leave him ever again.

‘ _Even the strongest person alive needs someone to support them_.’

Her economics teacher, Miss Bonarini, had the habit of writing a small letter to each of her senior high school students. Each letter contained a personal message and a small sketch of the student in question, all carefully wrapped with a white satin bow.

Pepper, well into her final college days, found out that the old gift brought her a strange sense of hope and security, no matter what she was struggling with. Ever since she started working for and, later on, with Tony, the letter became even more relevant for her, almost turning into a mantra she would repeat in her head, every time things became too hard to endure.

“Is everything ok?”

Pepper looked up from her cold tea cup and faced May, who was attentively studying her facial expression, from her chair, on the other side of the table.

“Yeah… I’m just thinking about the next meetings at work.”

“You’re sure?”, she asked, frowning slightly. She reached out for Pepper’s hands and offered a small, encouraging smile. “If you need anything, anything at all, as long as I can help, I’d like you to know that I’m here for you, Miss Potts. After everything you and Mr. Stark have down for Peter… I owe you so much. More than I could ever repay.”

“Nonsense. Peter is a great kid and you deserve this and much more for taking care of him all these years. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you, to adapt your life plans so you could raise your nephew.”

The brunette lips twitched into a sad smile and she let go of Pepper’s hands. She suddenly looked tired, almost as she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the tragedies that kept haunting her family up until this moment. Pepper mentally cursed herself for mentioning the subject and May might have noticed it, for she shook her head and lift her chin high in the air.

“Well… whatever it is, Miss Potts, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re smart and incredibly brave, and no one can knock down a woman like that.”

“Thank you, May… And, please, it’s just Pepper. Everyone calls me that.”

May smiled knowingly and got up from her chair, leaving Pepper alone with her thoughts.

\-------------------

“Colonel Rhodes, the procedure is complete.”

The announcement came in the early hours of the morning, FRIDAY’s quiet voice waking up Coronel Rhodes from a turbulent sleep, and, for once in his life, the man felt true appreciation for the dreadful night drills he had to endure in the military.

“Is everything ok?”, he dared to ask, silently ignoring the fact that he was still standing in the darkness, hands trembling with fear and anticipation. When the AI didn’t answered right away, Rhodey knew something was wrong. “FRY?”

“We have successfully recovered J.A.R.V.I.S. but he is having some difficulty in... “

“In what, FRIDAY?”, Rhodey demanded, voice raising with stress. He could almost swear that he heard FRIDAY sigh back at him before Harley and Peter stormed into his room.

Both boys were in ridiculously bright pajamas, Peter sporting his favorite Iron Man set and Harley using an odd mix of a super mario top and a pair of slytherin gym shorts, and with a terrible case of bed-hair. It was quite a funny sight, if he was being honest, but it had happened before so many times that it was starting to annoy him a bit.

‘ _The price of living with two teenage Starks_ ’, the Coronel thought to himself, still too amused to actually care.

“Dude, what are you still doing here?”, Harley stage whispered. The blond boy whined loudly when Peter hit his head for speaking so loud but his attention was focused on the older man in front of him. “J is back! We need to go see him!”

“I know, FRY was just telling me that.”, Rhodey grabbed his phone from the small nightstand and walked towards the door, urging the boys to do the same.

The walk to the boy’s lab felt like a strange march to death, with the boys whispering to each other in between wide smiles and Rhodey’s mind filling his head with terrible, but not impossible, fallout to their side project.

“FRY, tell us how we’re doing”, Harley requested, practically running to where the holographic spheres once stood.

The room’s mechanical lights were suddenly all turned off, forcing them to close their eyes for a few seconds, in order to adjust to the newly-found darkness. When they finally regained their vision, an holographic display flickered into life in the center of the shop. Both Peter and Harley awed in surprise, first, and then, as the image crystallised, the older boy started to recognise what he was looking at.

He stepped closer to the circling lines of code, painted in bright light across the darkness of the lab. Reaching out gently, picking out pieces to examine, he circled the display. He recognised parts of it and half-remembered fragments of code that Tony had once showed him, a few years before. He let go of the small line of coding and watched it take its place, once again and, as he stepped back, he saw it take rudimentary shape in front of him. The whole thing. Only partial, incomplete, inactive.

“There’s something missing here”, he murmured, absently, as he squatted down, hands grasping at a small piece of hair. Suddenly, as if some sort of genius god of technology had whispered into his ears, the answer came to him clear as crystal. He shot up and faced one of FRIDAY’s many cameras. “He can’t talk, can he?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Keener.”, FRIDAY’s answer felt like a gigantic punch in the stomach and Rhodey couldn’t hope but to feel betrayed. The boys, however, didn’t seem to be very upset. In fact, Harley looked like someone had offered him a high-tech, shiny, new puzzle he had to solve.

“But does he work fine otherwise? No bumps or crashes?”, he asked, looking quite satisfied when FRY confirmed there were no other problems. He looked back at Peter, who had been silently observing the entire process, while holding onto the working desk, and smiled confidently. “Here's the plan: I'm gonna get some coffee, throw a couple frozen pizzas in the over and get to work. Who's with me?”

“I can try to help but I'm not very good at this… coding thing.”, Peter winced, looking positively upset for not being able to help.

“How about we all go to bed for a couple more hours before we work on this?”, Rhodey suggested, stepping in between both boys. “It's not even 3 am and we have plenty of time tomorrow morning.”

Harley actually laughed at that, the little bastard.

“We’re _this close_ ”, he said pressing his thumb and index finger together, “to get J back and fully operational. I’m not gonna sleep until that happens. _Tony deserves better, J deserves better_. You can either help me or watch me do all the work. There’s no other way, Coronel. You choose.”

The teenage boy walked right past the man, grabbed the little coffee machine at the corner of the room and hummed as he poured the coffee powder into it. Peter glanced at Rhodey, unsure of what to do. He didn’t want to upset or disrespect the man but Harley was right, they needed to make J operational as soon as possible. _Tony needed him back_ and, deep down, J needed Tony too. With a shaky breath, the boy nodded at older male and, as he walked out of the lab, announced he would start making the pizzas and look for some other snacks to keep everyone going.

‘ _I guess I don’t have much of a choice._ ’, Rhodey bit back a sigh and rubbed his face, stretching his limbs as gently as he could. Harley turned around to face him, a half-full mug of steaming coffee in his hand, lazily leaning against the small “kitchen area”.

“Give me some of that coffee and tell me what you think that went wrong with the coding.” The boy smiled at him and handed him a fresh mug. This was going to be a _long night_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SO SORRY. Hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment telling me your opinion and what you hope to see in the future. Bye and thank you for reading this mess!


	7. The road home (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. It's here. It's finally here. Holy sht, I can't believe I'm done with this. It's currently 3.03 am and I'm exhausted from working on school stuff but I couldn't go to bed without posting this. I'm sorry I took so long. Hope you like it. I'll proof read it and edit it tomorrow. Sorry in advance.

“Why are you so cool and terrifying at the same time?”

Everyone in the lab turned around to face Ned, who was staring at Harley like he was some kind of superior being, sent to Earth to bless them with witty comebacks and potato guns. The older boy shrugged and kept on flipping through an old college book that used to belong to Tony.

“‘Dunno. I think it’s just my factory setting.”

Ned looked at him dumbfounded and nodded along, like that was the best answer possible in existence, before turning, once more, to his phone. Peter, however, wasn’t liking that conversation at all. Not one bit.

“Ned, what did he do?”, the boy asked, stepping closer to his friend, who, as usual, decided to promptly ignore that he was even in the same room as Peter. “Ned, what did Harley do?”

“I might have. might have not… How you say?”, Harley singsonged, eyes still glued to the book in his hands. Peter huffed in annoyance and Harley, as the greater, more reasonable person, laughed at his antics. “Let us just say that your friend, discount Flash, was exposed as the stupid asshole he is.”

“Harley,” Peter whispered, hands shaking slightly. Flash, despite everything, wasn’t dumb so, whatever Harley exposed him for, was definitely a very bad, not good, terrible thing indeed. And Peter’s life could turn into a nightmare because of that. “pick pocketing his phone and deleting his social media accounts was more than enough. What did you do now?”

“Nothing, ok?”, he said, dropping the book, clearly disappointed that it was a dead end. He got up from his spot on the ground and walked towards the coffee machine, shooting glances to Ned.

“I just… I had to take a break from helping J, as per Rhodey’s orders so I decided to find something fun to do. Something less challenging and that could give me a laugh or two and I ended up stumbling upon your school’s records. And maybe I took a look at senior discount Flash’s bank accounts, ok? And it just so happens that, every month, on the same day, Mr. I’m-So-Rich-It-Hurts transfers a very generous amount to an offshore account, that just so happens to belong to your school’s director. And, it just so happens, that it is the same amount every single time.

“So I might have sent the bank records to a gossip magazine that discount Flash’s mom and her rich friends just so happen to read and convince their biggest journalist, if you can even call him that, to publish a little piece in his secret chronicle talking about those amazing coincidences.”

He finished his speech with a shrug and took a gulp of coffee, so he could hide his smile. Peter, however, was not smiling. Not at all. What if someone found out it had been Harley to bribe the journalist to write that piece? Even if they didn’t make the connection between him and Peter, he could still get in trouble. And all because he wanted to avenge Peter or something like that…

“ _Oh, Dios mio…_ ” Peter mumbled, hands gripping the working bench and he felt drips of sweat rolling down his neck. “ _Ma, che sei grullo?_   What if they find out it was you? What if they think it was me? What if…”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing, little brother.”, Harley quoted, looking quite pleased with himself, as he watched Ned’s eyes light up in awe. Peter, nonetheless, was still shaking, eyes wide open and lips pressed together. Harley fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I promise no one will find out, Pete’. I used a burner phone to talk to the journalist, that is already dead and destroyed, by the way, and I did all my research using the best firewalls Tony could ever build. With some adjustments of my own, obviously.”

“Did…”, Pete’ bit his bottom lip, hands rushing through his greasy hair. “Did anyone already reacted to this?”

“Hell yeah! You gonna love this.”

Harley pulled a incredibly bright pink magazine and a stack of newspapers out of, what it seemed to be, thin air and threw it in Peter’s general direction. Upon closer inspection, each one had a few stickers, marking the pages dedicated to Harley’s work. And it was glorious. Apparently the journalists did some work of their own and noticed that other payments were done to other people responsible for things like extracurricular activities and even major movie directors. Apparently, Flash wasn’t a fan of waiting for his favorite movies to come out like everyone else on the planet and preferred to have his dad paying for an early session.

“Check page 3 on the next one.”, Ned said, tilting his head so he could read better from where he was sitting. Peter quickly picked up the next ‘paper turned to said page and started to read the article. “His dad tried to denied it all but their former maid confirmed everything and, honestly, is pure gold, dude. Pure gold.”

‘ _Dammit, I can’t get mad now._ ’, Peter thought, while he read on how Flash would constantly ask for stupidly expensive gifts and got furious when he wasn’t given what he wanted as soon as he wanted it, yelling and threatening to call the press and give them dirt on his own parents. The maid, who hadn’t been identified for security reasons, said that Flash’s dad was also involved in weird schemes and shady business and that his mom was constantly insulting her housekeepers. It was a shit show. Peter, even after everything, felt kinda bad for him.

Harley looked like he was going to say something when FRIDAY warned them that it was time for lunch and that Tony was looking for them. The boys got up in the same instant and asked FRY to put all their work away as they ran up the stairs, before Tony could get to them.

\----------------------

Tony was.... curious.

Peter and Harley had been acting weird. Weirder than usual, that is.

Even Rhodey had joined them in the lab for longer periods of time than it was normal and that could only mean one thing: they were working on something.

He wanted to know what it was.

‘ _Maybe I’m being paranoid._ ’, the man thought while nursing a cold cup of tea, watching the teenagers happily chatting with May, by the kitchen sink. ‘ _Rhodes would never let them do something dangerous, so they should be fine. I don’t need to mind their business, as long as they have someone responsible helping them._ ’

He watched as his hand played with the small cup, agitating it like he would do with a glass of whiskey. Oh, how things had changed. “Tony?”

“Yes, dear?”, he answered, instinctively, shooting Pepper a small smile that soon died when he met her eyes. She was clearly agitated and that could not mean good things.

“I need to talk to you. In private.”

‘ _uh oh_ ’

“Did I do forgot to sign anything? Did I miss a deadline or something? Did something happen in SI? I just checked the stock market and everything looked fine so…”

“ _Tony_ ”, she said, stepping closer to him, hand resting on his chest. “everything is fine at SI. This is… something personal.”

“Oh. Did I forget an anniversary?”

She laughed quietly but the laughter didn't quite reached her eyes. Tony felt himself frown as she closed the living room door and sat next to him in the couch.

“I don't know if I should be telling you this but I know you deserve to know. A few days ago, Bruce Banner showed up at the SI tower and asked to talk to you. He… well, you can see for yourself.”

She handed him her Starkpad and clicked play. The video looked like it was from a surveillance camera in her office and it showed the same man that had abandoned him months ago, standing in front of Pepper, speaking incoherently and looking like he was on the edge of hulking out. Tony ignored the not-so-imaginary pangs of pain in his chest and watched as Pepper ordered the other man to talk and listened to what he had to say. His story was absolutely insane but, as Pepper assured him, Thor, who was currently staying with Jane for the next few days, confirmed everything.

Tony felt like his brain was going to melt and bleed out through his ears.

“I want to talk to him.”, he said, long after the video had ended and the small screen turned blank.

“Tony, I don't…”

“No, Pep, this is not something you can talk me out of.”, the inventor said, cutting her off. “You heard him, if there's someone coming our way to kill us all, we need to get ready to do something about it. I need to do something about it.”

“And what do you want to do? Fight him alone?”, she tried to reason with him, but to no avail.

“The accords were created for this. We have entire teams willing to help and, even if that doesn't works out, I can always bring SHIELD back; we have hundreds of trained agents doing nothing in the sidelines. It doesn't matter who gets to work, but we need to figure this out.”

“Tony…”

“The avengers are gone, we failed. But as long as I'm still here, as long as people want me to be here, I won't abandon those who need me. Not when I can still fight for them.”

The space in between them was nothing but a few inches, the air heavy and filled with silence.

Pepper knew this was a lost fight.

“I'm going with you. We're meeting in a secure environment and I'm bringing backup.”, she announced, looking both defeated and like no one could make her change her mind.

Tony smiled sweetly as he held her hands, “I wouldn't try to convince you otherwise, even if I could.”

\------------------------

It was almost ten when Tony gets home.

Harley is leaving to college in two days and Tony promised he would spend the last day of summer break with the boys, watching movies and playing around with some new laser guns Harley had developed. They were also supposed to make pasta from scratch and Tony had still yet to figure out how the hell one was supposed to do that.

‘ _Maybe I can just hire someone to do it… No, that doesn't count, does it?_ ’, he thought as he walked into the house, only to be immediately greeted by both teenagers. Well, greeted was an euphemism. The boys practically threw themselves against him, grabbing at his arms and dragging him towards the living room where, strangely, everyone else was already waiting for him.

“Is this some sort of intervention?”, he joked, silently looking for answers in everyone else's eyes.

“I'm sorry, Tones.”, Rhodey supplied, not looking too upset about it.

“Guys, give Tony some space so we can get this over with.”, Rhodey commands and, unexpectedly, both Peter and Harley stepped away immediately, without a single grumble. With that, Tony just knew _something wasn't right._

“The boys have been working on something for you, Tony.”, Rhodey started to explain, gesturing in their way. Everyone in the room glanced at the boys, who were too focused on Tony to notice. “They asked for my help because they knew they shouldn't be doing it alone but most of the work was done by them. We had, however, a big help from Princess Shuri and I'm sure you'll want to thank her after this, Tony.”

“You got _Princess Shuri to help you guys build something for me?_ ”, the man echoed, eyes racing between the teens and his best friend.

“Not build… More like, rebuild.”, Harley corrected, eyes shining with misfit.

Tony looked back at the boy before turning to Rhodey with an expression of profound confusion, to which Rhodey answered with a knowing smile.

“It's easier if we just show you.” He said simply. “If you could follow me to their lab?”

The remaining adults eyed each other and shrugged, as they watched both Peter and Harley practically racing towards the lab, followed by an impatient looking Rhodey. When they finally reached the lab, they all stood as the boys exchanged smiles.

“So, is anyone going to talk or…”, May asked impatiently.

“Anytime now”, Rhodey whispered but it didn't sound like he was talking to anyone in the room.

“Welcome home, Sir,” JARVIS’ mechanical voice suddenly fills the lab like it had done so many times before and Peter feels Harley’s grip on his sleeve tighten. He doesn't blame him; he's just as nervous and excited as anyone else in the room.

“JARVIS?” Tony’s heart rate spikes and his eyes widen. The man holds himself against Pepper, who looks just as surprised as him, and a quiet sob dies in his throat. “Are you really here?”

There's a few milliseconds of silence before an answer arrives but, when it does, everyone can hear the happiness and relief within those words.

“For you, Sir, always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ma, che sei grullo?" is Italian for "how stupid are you?", according to google.
> 
> Please leave a comment telling me what you thought.


	8. Thank You So Much

Hi guys!

 

Sorry I dropped this series just like that but I've been struggling a lot with mental health and I just started working on a bookstore and things are busy for me right now. 

 

Anyway, I'll be working on other works (teen wolf, yuri!!! on ice and, for the first time ever, a completely original world filled of completely original characters) so, if you're interested in any of this, please keep an eye on my ao3 profile or on my tumblr (its-the-tear-in-my-heart). Also, feel free to message me or leave in the comments some ideas or things you'd like to see in my stories. I have plenty of ideas but I'm always happy to hear your opinions. 

 

Also, until infinity war comes out i'll try to post something more related to the avengers (maybe not to this series, at all, sorry)... And... Well, if Marvel fcks up and kills Tony... Well, my next work will be a 100k work yelling at Marvel and explaining why that was a very bad, stupid, absolutely dumb idea. 

 

And finallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO READ, COMMENTED AND LEFT KUDOS ON MY WORKS! I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! Like holy Jesus, over 500 kudos??? Jesus! I love you guys!

 

So yeah... Bye, guys! See ya soon (hopefully)!!!! 


	9. I'm Back!

Hi everyone!!

 

So... I'm back with another work, a sequel to this one, actually. It's called "A Place At The Table" and I'm already working on the fourth chapter so you should totally go check it because now the real fun stuff it's about to happen!

 

Once again, thank you for all your love and support, it means the world to me. I couldn't have done this without you and I owe you a lot. This project is helping me improve my writing skills, explore some headcanons and celebrate some of my favourite characters. It's amazing and I love you all for coming along with me on this journey.

 

So yeah, please check my new work and I hope to see you all in the comment section. Byeee!


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